The present invention relates to a method of producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.
Hinged-lid packets of cigarettes are normally produced on automatic machines comprising step conveyors and implementing various methods, all of which are based on two opposite principles: a first, whereby a group of cigarettes and a flat blank are brought together, and the blank is folded about the group of cigarettes to enclose the group inside the blank; and a second, whereby the blank is folded to form a pocket, the group is inserted into the pocket, and further folds are made to enclose the group of cigarettes inside the blank.
Methods based on the second principle have been widely used in the past, and have the advantage of speeding up the production of packets of cigarettes by permitting parallel performance of separate operations on the blanks and groups before the two are brought together, so that relatively few folds remain to be made once the groups of cigarettes are inserted inside the blanks. Methods based on the second principle, however, call for inserting the group extremely accurately inside the pocket, to avoid damaging the group and/or blank, and, for this reason, have proved unsuitable for use on continuous automatic machines, on which the extremely high speed at which the groups and blanks are brought together does not allow the group and the pocket to be maintained facing each other long enough to ensure correct insertion of the group inside the pocket of the blank.
Methods based on the first principle are undoubtedly more suitable for use on continuous automatic machines, in that any inaccuracy when the group and blank are brought together produces no damage to either, and can be corrected later when folding the blank by means of folding devices. Nevertheless, such methods, when used on continuous automatic machines, also involve drawbacks, by requiring that the machines be equipped with a large number of movable folding devices, which complicate the machine and only operate once the groups of cigarettes and blanks have been brought together.
DE-3536791 discloses an automatic packing machine for the continuous production and filling of hinge-lid packs. In the machine disclosed by DE-3536791, blanks are fed from a plurality of magazines via a continuously running feeder conveyor to a likewise continuously rotating folding conveyor; the already prefolded blanks are introduced directly by the feeder wheel into pockets of a pocket chain and during transport of such pockets, prefabricated cigarette blocks are conveyed to the pockets and the blanks in these by diagonal conveyors; finally, the largely ready-folded hinge-lid packs are ejected from the pockets by accompanying conveyors in the same way.
DE-3536791 discloses a continues packing machine, which partially folds a blank before feeding the relevant cigarette block to such blank; however, the machine disclosed by DE-3536791 results relatively complicated and bulky and, thus, expensive.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a method of producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes, designed to eliminate the drawbacks of the known state of the art, and which, in particular, is suitable for use on a continuous automatic machine.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method of producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.
The present invention relates to a machine for producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.
According to the present invention, there is provided a machine for producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.
The present invention also relates to a method of producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.
According to the present invention, there is provided a method of producing hinged-lid packets of cigarettes.